Amanda Brannum | Senior Director of Communications

As a returning member of the GFM team, Amanda Brannum brings more than 15 years of public relations experience to the agency, six of which she spent in the nonprofit arena. She was one of the earliest members of the GFM team, working from Texas, and is pleased to have come full circle. At GFM, Amanda works with clients in a wide variety of industries – from government, nonprofit and education to financial services and health care. Her specific clients have included Bellco, BNSF Railway, Boulder Community Health, Children's Hospital Colorado, the Colorado Department of Human Services, the Donnell-Kay Foundation, Get Smart Schools, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver, SafeHouse Denver, SlimGenics, Tennyson Center for Children and Young Americans Center for Financial Education.

Before moving to Denver in 2007, Amanda spent six years as the associate director of North Texas Business for Culture and the Arts in Dallas. In this role, she worked with more than 100 companies ranging from small startups to the likes of Texas Instruments, IBM, Verizon and American Airlines to promote and encourage business support for the arts in North Texas. She managed all marketing communications efforts for the organization, including media relations, advertising and event planning – all of which resulted in frequent placement in local and industry media outlets including The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Business Journal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Philanthropy World, among others.

Previously, Amanda was a senior account executive at Springbok Technologies, a Richardson, Texas-based public relations firm focused on the high-tech industry. In that capacity, she worked with CompuCom, GlobeRanger, Hybrid, OpenConnect and TrinTel Communications. In addition to working with local media on behalf of her clients, Amanda secured a number of placements in industry publications such as Red Herring, InfoWorld and Application Development Trends, positioning her clients as leaders and innovators in their respective fields.

Amanda earned her bachelor’s degree with a concentration in art history from the University of Texas’ Plan II honors program. She received her MBA and master’s degree in arts administration from Southern Methodist University. She also spent time studying business in Spain at Barcelona’s ESADE Business School.

During her spare time, Amanda enjoys reading, traveling, yoga and exploring the Front Range with her husband, their two young children and their dog.

Texas Forever
A native Texan, Amanda Brannum was born in Big D – home of the Cowboys, J.R. Ewing, the State Fair of Texas and, for nearly a year, Laura Love, founder of GFM. In fact, it was during those 11 fortuitous months that Amanda met Laura at a high-tech PR firm where they both worked.

At the age of 10, Amanda left her summer camp after only three days, and Amanda's friends and family began to wonder if she would ever overcome her homebody ways. Four years at the University of Texas did the trick. A devoted Longhorn, she nevertheless packed her bags upon graduation and headed to Washington, D.C., where she first entered the world of PR – as a temp at a crisis communication firm. Temp turned to perm, and Amanda ended up taking messages from the likes of Stone Phillips and Katie Couric. Perhaps not the most glamorous of starts, but she did end up with Stone's home phone number!

After her stint in the nation's capital, Amanda returned to Dallas for graduate school. Southern Methodist University’s arts administration program led her to internships at the Dallas Museum of Art and Christie's, a semester in Barcelona, Spain (where she enjoyed a bout of chicken pox), and a summer at an art gallery in San Francisco. Not bad for a kid who came home early from camp!

It was after graduate school that Amanda went to work at Springbok Technologies, the above-mentioned high-tech PR firm. Her proudest accomplishment there? Securing a hit for a client in Rafe Needleman's Red Herring column, "Catch of the Day." Turns out the client was a giant fan of Rafe’s.

One thing led to another, and Amanda eventually found herself back in the nonprofit world – as associate director of North Texas Business for Culture and the Arts. (For those of you who know the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, the NTBCA is Dallas' version.) As fate would have it, though, Amanda met and married a Sooner from the University of Oklahoma who whisked her away to Colorado. They now happily fly their rival flags right next to each other in their home on the side of a mountain.

A lover of travel, wine, museums, reading and yoga, Amanda spends most of her spare time with her husband, their two young children and their crazy yet loveable dog. When they're not playing among the elk in their neighborhood or visiting friends and family in Texas, they're probably planning their next big adventure. Most recently, they explored the beaches of Brazil.

One last item of note, Amanda is a minor TV star – she once appeared on Kathy Griffin's “My Life on the D-List.” Amanda is, of course, happy to sign autographs for anyone who is interested.

Top Five:
On the iPod: Runs the gamut from Justin Timberlake to Willie Nelson to AC/DC and just about everything in between
Pet Peeve: Automated phone systems – just let me talk to a real person!
Collections: Snow globes. And the beginnings of an art collection.
Guilty Pleasure: Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream
The inside scoop: Was on my school's academic pentathlon team in sixth grade! Ha!